The Red Garden - Alice Hoffman [74]
Tessa glanced over at her friend. “Reputations don’t mean a thing,” she said. “Jack Kerouac couldn’t care less about a person’s reputation.”
“Well, he didn’t live in Blackwell,” Carla said emphatically. “That Jesse is bad news.” It wasn’t completely true, but it was true enough, and Carla felt satisfied that she’d warned her best friend against him.
THE NEXT DAY was Sunday and Carla had to go visit her grandparents for lunch. On the way home, she was in the car with her parents and Johnny when they saw a station wagon pulled up at the gas pumps.
“Someone broke down,” Carla’s dad, Bill, said.
They were closed on Sundays, but steam was rising from beneath the station wagon’s hood. All at once Carla realized it was the Coopers’ car. Ava was standing there smoking a cigarette, a worried expression on her face. Carla slunk down in the backseat. Her face flushed, and she could feel her heart hitting against her chest.
“I’ll take care of it,” Johnny said. He got out and went over to Ava. She laughed and curtsied as though he was a knight who had come to her rescue. Carla looked through the rear window of the car as her father drove away. She watched until they turned the corner and couldn’t see anymore.
The next day when Carla went to the cottage, the Coopers’ car wasn’t in the driveway.
“My mother broke down. She got a ride back here on the back of a motorcycle. The guy driving it looked so much like Jack Kerouac I couldn’t believe it.”
Carla worried all that week that she would be found out. She was nothing in this town, just a gas station girl. As soon as Tessa knew who she was, she wouldn’t want her as a best friend anymore. Carla carried her dread around with her, knowing her happiness at being someone brand-new would soon be over. Sure enough, on Saturday Ava Cooper showed up to collect her car. “Carla,” she said, delighted when she came upon her daughter’s friend in the office. “I didn’t know you had a job!” Ava had a cake tin with her. “The gentleman who worked here was so helpful I brought a Gratitude Cake.” It was angel food with vanilla icing. “It’s even better than Gluttony Cake, although nothing is as good as an Apology Cake. That is by far my best recipe.”
Johnny waved from the garage. “Car’s all ready,” he called to Ava.
“Great,” Ava called back.
“Don’t tell Tessa,” Carla said.
“What?” Ava was distracted. She grabbed the cake tin to take out to the garage.
“Don’t tell her I work in a gas station.”
“There’s nothing wrong with working. You should be proud of it.”
“Please don’t tell her,” Carla begged.
Ava looked at Carla, her brow furrowed. “Okay. Fine. You tell her.”
AT THE END of the day Carla ran all the way to the river. She and Tessa always wore their bathing suits, but they never went swimming. There were the eels in the water, and if that wasn’t enough to keep a person out of the river, there were fast eddies and little whirlpools even in the summertime. Carla had warned Tessa that the Eel River was dangerous. But on that Saturday, Tessa and Jesse Mott were in the water. Carla could hear them whooping as they encountered the shock of the cold currents. She stopped at the edge of the pine forest. The sunlight was blinding. There they were, swimming around, laughing. Then Jesse moved in close, as if he was going to tell Tessa a secret. Tessa laughed and swam away to the bank. She pulled herself out. She stood there in her slip, now see-through in the sunlight, water dripping from her arms and from her long pale hair. She looked like a nymph. She had an unreadable expression, but she broke into a grin when she spied Carla standing in the woods.
“Hey, you!” Tessa waved. She looked like herself again.
Carla could hear Jesse mutter “Shit” under his breath as he dragged himself onto the riverbank. He certainly wasn’t pleased to see her. Carla walked toward them with a sour look.
“There are eels in there,” she said of the water. “Where’s Frank?” she asked Jesse. Just the two of them meant something. She felt as if she had stepped into a pool of